Does your tech firm have a go-to-market (GTM) strategy in place? Do you know what a go-to-market strategy is or how you can benefit from having one? Tech marketers are increasingly embracing go-to-market strategies because they clearly define how to deliver a company's product to target customers. It's like a blueprint to success—especially when you follow all the proper steps.

Key Takeaways

• A go-to-market strategy details a company's targeted customers and how to reach them

• A GTM strategy is important when launching a new product or introducing an existing product to a new market

• A GTM strategy provides a clearly defined path to market success for all stakeholders

• To create a GTM strategy, define customer personas, conduct a market analysis, define the marketing strategy, select the marketing mix, and specify the sales strategy

What Is a Go-to-Market Strategy?

A Go-to-Market strategy is a detailed plan that spells out in a step-by-step fashion who a company's target customers are and how to reach them. It incorporates a definition of the customer, an analysis of the market, the development of market and sales strategies, and a description of the ideal marketing mix.

When Should Tech Companies Develop a Go-to-Market Strategy?

Tech companies often develop GTM strategies when they're in the following circumstances:

• Launching a new product or service
• Introducing an existing product to a new market
• Repositioning a product, brand, or company

Given that 95% of new product introductions fail, adopting a GTM strategy could mean the difference between success and failure for your company's new product initiatives.

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Why Should Tech Marketers Adopt a Go-to-Market Strategy?

Developing and properly executing a GTM strategy offers numerous benefits to technology companies. According to a Gartner Inc. report, B2B companies that optimize their GTM strategies will outperform their competitors by 50%.

Other important benefits of adopting a GTM strategy include:

• Clearly aligns and provides direction to all stakeholders
• Establishes a timeline for major milestones and outcomes
• Speeds time-to-market for new products and services
• Increases probability of successful product launch
• Minimizes risk of unsuccessful product launch
• Enhances ability to quickly react to market changes or customer demands
• Ensures an optimized customer experience

In short, a GTM strategy provides a clearly defined, attainable path to market success.

How Do You Create a Go-to-Market Strategy in the Tech Industry?

Creating a GTM strategy requires considerable work up front, but the ultimate payoff is worth it. There are a lot of individual activities involved, but they fall under five action items:

1. Define customer personas
2. Conduct a market analysis
3. Define the marketing strategy
4. Select a marketing mix
5. Specify the sales strategy

Work through these action items step-by-step as a go-to-market strategy template.

Define Customer Personas

The first step in creating a GTM strategy is to define who your target customers are. You can do this best by developing multiple customer personas that detail key aspects of each customer based on available data. A typical customer persona answers the following questions:

• Who is your customer? (age, gender, education level, and so forth)
• Where do they live?
• Where do they work?
• What challenges do they face?
• What do they need?
• What do they expect?

You’ll likely identify multiple customer personas based on different types of customers. The more and better data you have about each customer type, the more detailed the personas you can create. The goal is to better understand who your customers are and what makes them tick, so you can better serve their needs and meet their expectations.

Conduct a Market Analysis

You shouldn't go blindly into a new market or product segment. You need to do your research up front and craft a detailed analysis of that market or segment. That involves a variety of activities, including:

• Examine market dynamics. What is the size of the market? Is the market growing or shrinking, by how much, and why? What key factors influence the shape of the market?
• Evaluate your company's capabilities. How well-equipped is your company to compete in this market? Is it similar to or different from other markets in which you play? Can your business adapt to the peculiarities of this market?
• Inspect the competition. Who are the other players in this market? What are their market shares? What are their strengths and weaknesses? What are the leading players doing right? What do their customers think about them? How likely is it that those customers would be willing to consider a new competitor?
• Consider alternative products. How does your product compare to competing products? What is current pricing? How do your costs compare to the costs of competing products? What unique competitive advantages might your product have?

Define the Marketing Strategy

You can now define your marketing strategy with all this research in hand. Your strategy should include the following major components:

• Market selection. Determining which markets to pursue.
• Market segmentation. Organizing your target audiences into defined customer segments with common needs and who respond similarly to marketing efforts.
• Segment targeting. Prioritization of specific market segments.
• Product positioning. Positioning your product toward specific market segments in the marketplace.
• Messaging. Communicating the benefits of your product or service to your target market segments.

Naturally, there are a lot more details involved in creating a marketing strategy, but these are the major components to address.

Select the Marketing Mix

Where should you market your product? How should you price it? How should you promote it? Answering these questions helps you determine your marketing mix, which consists of what marketers call “The 6 P's of Marketing”:

• Product. What product are you selling, and what are its key features and benefits?
• Price. What is the optimal price to sell this product?
• Place. Also known as distribution, where and how will the product be sold?
• Promotion. How and where will the product be promoted—print advertising, broadcast advertising, social media, online advertising, email, and so forth? (Digital marketing is particularly important for most GTM strategies.)
• People. Who is selling this product? Is it your normal sales team or new sales reps specifically for this product? Are you using third parties at all?
• Process. How is the product delivered to the customer? What processes and services are involved?

Specify the Sales Strategy

Finally, you need to specify precisely how you’re selling this product or service. You'll need to answer the following questions:

• Are you selling via inbound or outbound sales?
• Are you using your internal sales force or external sales reps?
• Are you selling direct to the customer or via a network of distributors?
• Are you selling online at all?
• What kind of sales training do you provide?
• How are you supporting your sales staff—and your customers—after the sale?

Whatever your sales strategy, it's important that you align your sales and marketing teams for optimal results. Your marketing team will need to provide your sales reps with all the tools and support they need to be successful.

Let ActualTech Media Help You Develop a Go-to-Market Strategy for Your Business

When you want to implement a go-to-market strategy in your technology business, turn to the experts at ActualTech Media. We specialize in IT marketing for technology companies and offer lead generation services to generate more leads at lower cost for your business. We also offer other effective tech marketing services, including multi-vendor webinars and content marketing and syndication. We've been providing innovative content and services to technology companies for more than a decade–and can help your company reap the benefits of a go-to-market strategy.

Contact ActualTech Media today to learn more about developing a GTM strategy for your tech business.